Penthouse publisher and Milo Yiannopoulos tour organiser Damien Costas declared bankrupt

Local Penthouse publisher and Milo Yiannopoulos tour organiser Damien Costas has been declared bankrupt.

Publisher of Penthouse Australia and New Zealand Damien Costas. Picture: Supplied

Damien Costas, publisher of men’s magazine Penthouse in Australia and New Zealand and Milo Yiannopoulos tour organiser, has been declared bankrupt after his former printer, TMA Australia, took him to court over outstanding debts totalling around $175,000.

TMA chief executive Anthony Karam said Costas was declared bankrupt by the Federal Court yesterday after a lengthy court battle.

“He’s gone, he’s finished, bankrupt,” Mr Karam told The Australian.

“He’s in a world of hurt and doesn’t even realise it yet.”

Milo Yiannopoulos speaks alongside Damien Costas in Sydney in 2017. Pictutr: Getty

Mr Karam doesn’t expect to retrieve any of the money owed to TMA, which related to “general printing work” for Costas through one of his companies.

The company was subsequently wound up by Costas, but TMA could pursue him because of the personal guarantee with TMA, Mr Karam said.

The Federal Court published a court order dated March 21 that confirms the estate of Damien Costas has been “sequestrated under the Bankruptcy Act” and that “the date of the act of bankruptcy is October 9, 2018”.

Costas’s lawyer Daniel Riedstra from Prime Lawyers wasn’t immediately available to comment on the court decision.

As well as publishing Penthouse, Costas was the tour promoter of controversial commentator Milo Yiannopoulos’s Australian tour in 2017.

During the tour, Yiannopoulos’s spoke at Parliament House in Canberra at the invitation of independent senator David Leyonhjelm. One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Nationals senator George Christensen also attended the event.

Mr Leyonhjelm shares the same book publisher as Yiannopoulos, Michael Wilkinson from Wilkinson Publishing, who also attended meeting in Canberra.

Mr Wilkinson was with Yiannopoulos’s local publicist Max Markson.

Max Markson quit as Penthouse publicist last July because of an outstanding bill.

Mr Markson said he is owed more than $100,000.

Mr Yiannopoulos was recently banned from coming to Australia by the Morrison government.